


Heroes, Just For One Day

by Yahtzee



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Logan), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men (Original Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 07:54:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10158014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: In the final act of "Logan," we discover that one other mutant from the early days has survived. Logan says one more goodbye.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, you show me Logan reading comic-book panels of him and Rogue, then show him looking at the dog tags he gave her to hold once, fic like this is just going to happen.
> 
> **

Adamantium is heavy as fuck. Logan's always known that, but he never really felt it before his power started to fade. Now he has to carry that weight every step, every breath.

He doesn't think he'll have to carry it much longer.

The kids' pulley can't be strong enough for him, he thinks, and as they lift him up through the air, he feels the swing and sway. It's nauseating, and unnerving on a base, instinctive level; it wakes him up as much as anything else could at the moment. _Great. I come to just in time to get my ass dropped down fifty feet._

But the rope holds. The stretcher or plank or whatever he's on is tugged to the platform where their cabin lies. Children's small hands settle him down and untie his ropes. Laura kneels by him, her dark eyes wide with an emotion he hasn't seen in her until now: hope. "We have a friend here. She found Rebecca, came with her. She can help."

"Not unless she showed up with a Sherman tank," Logan mutters. Another nurse, probably, as well-meaning as Gabriela and just as doomed. His vision is hazy from exhaustion or heatstroke, but he can make out the shape of a woman—slim and strong, wearing jeans and a tank top, with long blonde hair that hangs almost to her elbows. At first she's hurrying toward him, clutching a box that's probably a first-aid kit; then her steps slow and halt while she's still several feet away.

But that's close enough for him to recognize that amid all that blond hair, right in front, there's one long streak of perfect white.

Can't be. She's lost, they're all lost, nothing ever comes back once it's gone, the world isn't good enough for her to still be here—

"Logan?" the woman whispers, walking toward him again with steps that sway as if she were about to faint.

Somehow he manages to say, "Marie."

She kneels by him, and the kids are all talking at once, and he can't tell if she's shaking or crying or what. The sun overhead is too bright in his eyes. Maybe this is the moment he dies.

Logan fumbles at his pocket and pulls out the dog tags. Marie kept them for him once; maybe she'd like them back again. He presses them into her hand right before he passes out.

 

**

 

When Logan comes to again, he's lying on a small bed with a cast-iron frame and a mattress so thin he can feel the bars beneath it. Beats the ditch he would've spent the night in otherwise. He's naked except for a thin sheet up to his waist, and his clothes hang from a nearby cord, now only faintly bloodstained as they dry. With his first conscious inhalation, he knows somebody gave him a sponge bath, because he doesn't reek like roadkill anymore. The Reivers are still after them and Logan's still pretty sure he's dying, but all in all, things are looking up.

He knows that because of the figure sitting at the foot of his bed, smoothing adhesive over the fresh bandage she's wrapped around his exposed calf. It wasn't a vision he had before, wasn't an angel come to collect him to a heavenly reward he definitely hasn't earned. That really is his Marie, once known as Rogue.

Marie dyed her hair, maybe to hide the streak a little. She looks to be in her early thirties though if he remembers right she's a solid decade older—while his longevity was extreme, a lot of mutants aged more slowly than regular old homo sapiens. Most people wouldn't recognize her as the girl from the famous Statue of Liberty incident. But he knows her snub nose, her stubborn chin, even the way she frowns down at an important task. Knows her by heart.

"You know," he rasps, startling her, "if you wanted to get my clothes off, you could've just asked."

"Was that the trick?" A slow smile spreads across her face. He sees that gap between her front teeth, the one he always thought was so cute. "Damn, I wish I'd known that before."

He laughs, or tries to; his cracked ribs haven't healed yet, and the ache goes deep. "Where's Laura?"

"With the other kids. They're so glad to be together again." Marie touches his hand. "Which makes two of us. Or more, maybe. Are—are any of the others—"

"Not that I know of. These last few years, after what went down in Westchester, I've been taking care of the professor. Doing the best I could." Which wasn't that good, and both Logan and Charles knew it. He remembers looking down at Charles' bloodied form and desperately whispering, _It wasn't me._ Why did it matter so much that Charles understood that? But it did matter. He thinks Charles knew the truth before the end; that's all the comfort he gets. "The Reivers sent X-24 to kill him two days ago. Murdered a ninety-year-old man in his bed. Motherfuckers."

"Two days," she repeats, her voice tremulous. Her head hangs low with grief. They were so close to being reunited. Logan would've given a lot to see Charles' face light up with pure joy when he saw Marie again. But they've all steeled themselves against pain these last several years; in only seconds she lifts her face again. "How do you feel?"

"Like shit."

"Can you maybe be a little more specific?" Marie raises one eyebrow. They're trying so hard to tease each other, to ignore the all the ruin.

But there's not much way to keep that going and still answer her question. Breathing out heavily, he tries to describe it for her. "Probably you can see my healing power's not working the way it used to. I still shake stuff off, but it takes longer. Hours sometimes, maybe days. I'm not as strong, either, which means carrying this heavy metal skeleton around is starting to hurt. And speaking of heavy metals, I'm pretty sure the adamantium's poisoning me. I don't know how much longer I've got."

"Oh, Logan." Marie's head droops again. How long she must have waited for some good news. She's gonna have to keep waiting. The only one who got a miracle today is him.

"How are you alive?" he whispers.

"After the incident, I lost my powers pretty much the same as any other mutant. The difference was, that actually made it easier for me to get around instead of harder, so all I had to do to disguise myself was dye my hair. Waited tables for a while. Scored a fake ID off a kid with a shop set up in his college dorm room, which is how my name got changed to Mary Murphy. Got my GED, because I couldn't go around showing off my diploma from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, went to community college, became a med tech. Which is how you got all of this—" Marie gestures to the various bandages and syringes around them. "—and how I wound up taking care of an injured girl with no next of kin three days ago. The minute I realized what she was, I knew I had to help if I could." She always was a better person than him.

Logan tries to roll over, but when his ribs protest, he stops. "Do I have to call you Mary?"

"Don't you dare."

"The kids—this crazy scheme of theirs out of the comics—"

"It's legit, Logan. Don't you see?" She still has that crooked smile. "They used the coordinates from the comics on purpose. So anyone who knew our story could find us."

_Our story. Us._

Logan hasn't heard words like that in a long time.

Weariness flows over him again like the tide coming back in. As his eyelids droop, Marie brushes her hand against his forehead. That's the first time he's ever felt her touch without pain. "Shh. Get some more rest. You need it."

He wants to sleep, but he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to close his eyes again if it means looking away from her. "When I—wake up—you'll be here?"

Marie takes his hand. "I'll be here. I promise." It's the first promise he's believed in years.

 

**

 

The next day he wakes up to half a dozen kids trimming his beard, which isn't half as funny as they think it is. But the fact of the matter is, he feels better after. Cleaner, anyway. Best of all, when Marie walks in the cabin and sees him shorn back to some semblance of his former self, she grins.

Her smile fades later that day when he explains that he's not going on with the rest of them.

"How can you stay behind?" she protests. "How can you let them go on without any protection?"

"One, they've got protection." He points at Laura, who nods sagely. _My daughter_ , he thinks, rejecting the label even as he sees how damn well it fits. "Two, I don't know if you noticed, darlin', but I'm not much better than dead weight at this point."

"You got Laura here, didn't you? If you weren't still strong, you couldn't have made it."

"Same goes for you." When he looks at Marie, he can hardly see the scared little girl he met in the Canadian Rockies. She's a woman who knows her own power. Not many people could stand in her way.

Marie nods, acknowledging that, but it's not enough for her. This isn't about protecting the kids. "I just got you back, and already—"

" _I'm dying_." The words come out too loudly. Logan doesn't want this to be like he's yelling at her. They don't have much time to add new memories, and he'd like one person on this godforsaken Earth to remember him well. More quietly he adds, "You didn't get me back. We just got a second shot at goodbye. That's all there is."

Shee looks up at the ceiling, blinking back tears. "Okay," she whispers. "Okay."

"If I had more to give, it would be yours."

Their eyes meet with the kind of intimacy and intensity he remembers from the very beginning, in the Rockies, when they were the only two people alive who cared whether the other lived or died. But he can't look at her too long.

 

**

 

That night, the kids huddle up in their bunks, acting like they're too excited to sleep until they all drop off around midnight. As Marie tucks in the last of them, Logan walks out toward the vehicle Laura stole, which comes closer to being "his" than anything else in the vicinity. He rummages around in the back, refreshing his blurry memories from earlier: a couple sleeping bags, a baseball cap, tackle box and—thank Christ—a cooler.

"Sorry we jacked your ride," he mutters to the owner, wherever he is, because obviously he was a goddamned genius, the kind of guy who would load up for the afternoon with two six-packs of Budweiser. The ice has all but melted, and the cans bob in stale meltwater, but the beer is still cool enough to feel good going down.

Logan drinks with abandon, usually, because while he can get drunk, his power makes it difficult for him to _stay_ drunk. Even now, when his injuries take hours or even days to heal, he can throw off the effects of a full bottle of whiskey within forty-five minutes or so. It's not even worth trying to get more than a faint buzz off the beer. That's enough. He sits down on one of the larger rocks on the hillside and looks up at the crescent moon. They say the Chinese are up there right this second, building the base America never got around to. These days all the good things happen somewhere else.

When he hears footsteps behind him, his first impulse is to turn, but then the breeze brings him Marie's scent. So he reaches into the cooler at his feet and holds up a can for her.

"You sure know how to treat a girl," she drawls, snagging it from his hand as she settles in by his side. A pop of metal, a fizz and a swallow, and then she sighs. "Oh, damn, I needed that."

"I imagine. You must've be thrown when you found that kid, realized what she was."

Marie takes another deep gulp of beer and tilts her head back. Her profile is almost a silhouette in the moonlight; her dog tags hang around her neck, dangling out of sight beneath the low neckline of her tank top. "You know what I thought before anything else? I thought it had to be a trap. That somebody had set this up with some fake kid mutant to draw me out."

"You stay hunted long enough, you keep lookin' for hunters."

"When I finally got that Rebecca was for real—" Marie gestures vaguely in front of her, like she can grab the words she needs out of the air. "—it was like something in me that had been asleep for years woke up again."

Logan imagines her face lighting up with wonder. He would've liked to have seen that.

The wind catches at her long hair as she looks over at him. "Was it that way for you, with Laura?"

"No." Which isn't one hundred percent true. But he can't pretend he reacted like Marie did. He's not that good.

"I guess it's different for you, since she's your—clone, or daughter, whatever you'd call it."

"Yeah." That's as close as he's gotten to claiming Laura as his own; it comes too naturally. So does the next confession, slipping out of him like he can't hold on to it: "I would've liked to be with her longer. Teach her more."

Marie nods, clearly torn between not wanting to pry and wanting to pry real bad. "Like, um, how to defend herself?"

"No, she's got that one down." As disturbing as it is to see a child punching through skulls and slicing off heads, he can't help being impressed. Even in his prime, he didn't fight like that. When Laura grows up, she'll be unstoppable.

Not that he'll get to see it.

He continues, "I just mean—dealin' with it. Learning how to be what we are. Living with what we have to do sometimes." Tipping back the can, he swallows the last of that beer and pops open another. "Don't guess I was ever the best at that, though. You'll teach her better than I ever could've."

"You could—" Marie's voice trails off. She knows he's dying as surely as he does.

"You'll take care of her." _For me_ , something in him wants to add, but it's not necessary. Marie would take care of Laura and all the other young mutants without any urging from him or anyone else. Everything that's crude and twisted in him shines in her, pure and bright, in a way he doesn't think he's ever found in another soul.

It's almost painful, having to believe in someone again. But with Marie he doesn't have a choice.

She murmurs, "I can't wrap my head around it. You were the one who saved me, and to me that's who you'll always be. I don't understand a world where I'm as strong as you."

"Stronger. And you always were. It's just more obvious now." The corner of his mouth twitches. "The way I figured it, you were the one who saved me. I'd still be fighting in fucking cages if it weren't for you."

His life these days isn't a whole lot better than it was back then, but he had some good years in-between. What little happiness he ever had began with her. Now it's going to end with her.

"I still think about what it was like, you and me driving along through the snow." Marie hugs her knees to her chest. "You knew I had a huge crush on you, right?"

"Yeah. Just like I knew you'd always wise up about me and find yourself someone better."

She shakes her head. "I found other guys. Nearly got married a few years back to a man who thought my name was Mary. But I never did get over you."

It took him longer than it should've to realize she was working around to this. Probably he should be embarrassed or irritated, because this is really not the time and he is no longer that man. Instead he's touched, even moved, to find this one last scrap of innocence.

Logan caresses the side of her face, cups the back of her head. "C'mere."

Marie leans into him, her lips already parting for the kiss.

It's a good kiss. Better than it has any right to be. He hasn't touched a woman in a couple of years and hasn't much felt the lack, a definite sign he's dying. But some hint of that long-ago heat flows back into him as they touch lips, then tongues. Marie makes a tiny soft sound in the back of her throat that quickens his heartbeat, and as she pushes into the embrace, their kisses intensify. The scent of her fills his breath.

When they break apart, she leans her forehead against his. "Mmm."

"Yeah."

"Tell me the truth." Marie pulls back just far enough to meet his eyes. She's wearing that little half-smile that means she's up to mischief. "Did you ever imagine doing that, way back when? Or was it just me?"

"Let's put it this way. I tried real hard _not_ to imagine doing that. Most of the time I managed it."

"But not always?"

"…not always." Never in detail, because he never understood what other men saw in jailbait other than an easy mark. It was Marie's affection that tempted him, not her too-young body. His few guilty fantasies all slid into a future where she was old enough to choose, to want, to fuck. He never guessed that future would look like this.

Marie kisses him again, a quick brush of her lips. "You want to see what else I daydreamed about?"

He hooks two of his fingers into the strap of her tank top, pulling it far enough aside to kiss her collarbone. Against her skin he whispers, "That's the best damn offer I've had in a long time, but—I'm not what I was."

"Neither am I. Neither is anyone else."

"You want the Wolverine. I can't even remember being that guy half the time."

" _I_ remember." Her voice strengthens. "To me you're always going to be the man who saved me. The hero. Nothing takes that away. Not the years, not the scars. Don't you shake your head at me, because you're doing it too. When you look at me, it's in your eyes—you see the person I was. The girl able to take on the whole world."

"But you are," he says.

Marie shakes her head. "I still do what I can, but there's not much left of the girl I used to be. She's lost with the world we knew. With you, though—you _see_ her. You remember, and I have to remember too, and remembering makes me feel stronger and more beautiful than anything else ever will again. Don't you feel that, just a little, when I look at you?"

He can't answer her; he can't find his voice. But it's true. Even though his eyes see the small lines at the corners of her eyes, the extra threads of gray at the roots of her bottle-blonde hair, it's like those details can't stick in his mind. Her eyes are just as dark, her lips as full, and she shines like she did that night he came back to the mansion after so long away. That's the real Marie, for Logan; he can't see her any other way. It makes his throat go tight to think that her mind might be as kind to him.

The man he used to be is resurrected in her eyes. That's the only rebirth he'd ever want or need.

Her gaze never leaves his rugged, ragged face as her fingers thread through his wiry hair. "Let's be heroes again, Logan. Let's be the people we were, just for a night."

He brushes his thumb along her cheek and kisses her again, long and deep. In this moment he's closer to being in love with her than he ever was before.

When they break apart this time, though, he still feels the need to warn the lady. "It's been awhile. A long while. Hell, I don't even know if it still works."

He expects her to be turned off or at least embarrassed. Instead she raises an eyebrow. "Seems like your tongue still works."

Okay, he didn't see that coming. A laugh escapes him. "Damn, girl."

Marie ducks her head. She might be bold enough to say that now, but not so much she won't blush after she does it. "I just meant—only if you want it too—"

Logan kisses her one more time, deep and wet. The fire kindling inside him isn't the old blaze, but it's enough to keep them both warm. Against her lips he murmurs, "You still want this old man, he's yours."

She answers him by pulling him into the truest embrace he's known for a long time.

They lay the sleeping bags in the back of the jeep, one on top of the other, which is as much padding as they're going to get. Logan kicks off his boots behind the back wheels, and she drops her sneakers on top of them. Then they crawl in the back and stretch out alongside each other. He winds his scarred hands through her hair as they start kissing, touching, stroking. Over the past few years he's been in pain so often that he'd almost forgotten his body could be a source of pleasure, too—that touches could warm and comfort him, that his heart would beat faster for a reason besides a fight. The way she arches against him makes him feel closer to being alive.

He strips off his tank top, then hers. The bra's one of the cotton ones meant for sports, not sexiness, but that’s even more arousing—the knowledge that this is a surprise to them both, nothing they planned, one last unexpected mercy from that bitch called Fate. Marie takes over, sitting up and wriggling out of her bra so that her breasts jiggle from side to side; he likes that. Likes it a lot. Sitting up to pull her closer, he captures one nipple in his mouth and relishes the way she moans.

Those dog tags jingle as she moves, and he hooks a couple fingers around them to lift them over her head. But Marie's hand halts his. She shakes her head, long hair tumbling over her shoulders. "You gave those back to me," she drawls. "They're mine now."

"Yeah. They're yours." Logan drops a kiss onto the tags and lets them fall between her breasts. That's hot as hell. He's not so evolved that he doesn't get revved up at the thought of claiming a woman as his own.

They keep going, stripping each other down. Marie got first go at this with him the day before, so the terrible scars on his body don't throw her. The first time a mark stayed on him, Logan almost liked it; he'd never before had tangible proof of anything he lived through. But the novelty wore off fast. She doesn't flinch from the ridges and welts, and maybe it's the medical training, but she knows where to be careful, to go gentle. He's never had anybody go gentle with him before. Hadn't realized it was so nice.

Her body's a goddamned masterpiece by comparison. The only marks on her are the normal ones that testify to life—faint stretch marks on her breasts, a pale white line on her abdomen that testifies to some surgery long ago. A small X in a circle is tattooed on her left calf, a crude marking he realizes must've been handmade. Probably a do-it-yourself job. What was in her mind the night she inked herself over and over, ignoring each jab of pain to mark herself forever with an insignia that could only make her a target?

He'll ask later, if he remembers. But right now she's shinnying out of those panties, and he's got better things to do than talk.

Logan lies back and coaxes her into putting her knees on either side of his shoulders. It might've been a while, but this is one thing he'd never forget how to do. He fucking loves eating a woman out and wants to give Marie the best she's ever had. At the first lap of his tongue, she cries out, and she only gets louder as he keeps going. Good. He likes to hear some noise. Is his Marie a screamer? Maybe she will be tonight.

 _Sweet girl,_ he thinks, burying his face in her, relishing the scent and taste that's all over him. It hits him again that this is Marie, the same one who came back to life in his arms atop the Statue of Liberty, grown up and strong but still that little thing he first knew. The forbidden angle that couldn't have appealed to him at the time hits him now. Hits him hard. His mind fills with the image of her back at Xavier's school, gazing up at him with adolescent adoration; he imagines kneeling before that girl and saying, _You own me. Anything you want, I'm gonna do._

Marie's thigh muscles tense, and her back arches. Logan tightens his grip on her hipbones. She's close. He knows to keep going, speeding up only a little unless she tells him otherwise—ah, _fuck_ , the sounds she's making are getting him so damn hot—

No. Not a screamer. But the moan she makes as she comes is as beautiful as any scream could ever be. She sways atop him, her head leaning back as she shudders. Logan doesn't stop until he can tell the last spasm's gone through her. Then he settles her back on his chest, dropping a wet kiss on her leg. "That what you dreamed about, way back when?"

"Mmmm." She's still not quite together enough to answer him, which makes him smirk. That, she's aware enough to see. "You're pretty proud of yourself," she murmurs.

"Nothing wrong with taking satisfaction in a job well done." He scrapes his teeth along the tender flesh of her inner thigh.

Marie's smile looks as wicked as his feels. "You want to know what I dreamed about?" With that she crawls down his body until her mouth's above his cock. He can feel her breath on his skin as she whispers, "Let me show you."

Despite everything, he's only half-hard, which is half more than he'd thought his worn-out body could manage. That changes when she opens her lips for him and takes him in. The heat of it—the sight of her wrapping her fingers around the base of his cock, mouth wide around him—only a dead man wouldn't respond to that, and he's not quite dead yet.

She lifts her head, still stroking him with her hand. "When I was back at school, hearing the others talk about blow jobs—I figured I'd never do that. Just imagine it. And when I lay in bed at night, I always imagined doing it to you."

" _Fuck_ ," he whispers. He never meant to fantasize about that, but now he can't stop and doesn't want to.

Marie runs her tongue along the shaft, and Logan has to grip the edge of the seat behind him, like hanging onto something can help him stay sane when she's driving him this wild. Even that fails when she says, "The only way I ever got off back then was touching myself. So that's what I did, Logan. Put one hand between my legs and the other one to my mouth, so I could suck on my fingers and pretend I was sucking your cock when I came."

That's it. Already Marie's going down on him again, but he fists his hand in her hair and pulls her back. When she looks up at him in surprise, he growls, "Ride me. _Now_."

Oh, the smile on her face. She has him in her power and she knows it. _Loves_ it. There's nobody else he could surrender to like this.

Then she's over him, on him, lowering herself onto him. Logan pumps his hips, thrusting into the heat of her as roughly as he can, and she loves that too. With every move, her breasts bounce and her long, wild hair sways. Distantly he hears the protesting squeak of the jeep's shock absorbers; they're going at it hard.

"What about this?" he pants, reaching up to palm one of her breasts. "You daydream about this?"

Marie's past talking now; she can only nod. Maybe he can get her off again. Logan slides his fingers down her abdomen, dipping into her navel for one instant before finally pressing the heel of his hand against her, just there, moving in a slow circle. His reward is a whimper.

"That's right. That's what you wanted, up in your bed late at night. Wanted me to fuck you just like this."

Maybe she's one of those who comes easier the second time. Maybe she likes dirty talk. Whatever does it, she's already coming again, and this time he gets a lot closer to that scream.

The years and the pain have all fallen away. He feels as young as when the world was new. Even as she gasps for breath in her aftermath, he rolls her over so that he's on top. Their mouths meet in a sloppy kiss that breaks when he can't stand not thrusting for one more moment.

It all blurs for him after that. Every move he makes sends waves of pleasure through a body that had almost forgotten how to feel it. Even better is the way Marie moves under him, slow and sinuous, matching him stroke for stroke. He's the one moaning now, which isn't how it usually goes, but fuck it, he can't hold back. Not with her, not tonight.

At last heat inside him boils over and he shouts out as he comes, his entire body shuddering with the ecstasy of it. Marie takes his face in her hands while he's still shaking, watching him with wide eyes, like she's drinking in this moment in which he so completely belongs to her. It's as much as he's ever belonged to anyone.

 _Heroes_ , he thinks, _just for stealing one damn night._ That's enough.

Afterward, he holds her against him as she pillows her head on his chest. "Sometimes I felt like I'd lost everything," she says drowsily. "You're one of the only things I ever got back."

Logan kisses her hair, because he can't say what he's thinking out loud.

As the adrenalin fades, his old weariness and aches are already coming back; soon that green stuff the kids injected him with will wear off too, and he'll be back to the wreck he was when he got here. He's still dying.

That means tonight was his last time to make love to a woman, the last time ever in his life.

He's so damn glad it was her.

 

**

 

Sixteen hours later, Marie stands at the outskirts of a circle of children, not far from a lake on the edge of the Canadian border. The sun's getting lower in the sky, casting long shadows that will soon stretch over Logan's grave.

She hadn't been surprised when he didn't come with them; if anything, she felt guilty for sapping the last of his energy. It was hard to walk away and leave him to die in that cabin, but the kids needed her more. Logan would've told her to go, if she needed someone to tell her, which she didn't.

But he came after them in the end, sacrificing himself to save them all. Marie watched him die from a distance. She didn't want to rob those final moments from Laura, who would have so little to remember of the man she called her daddy. Besides, they'd said the only goodbyes they needed. So Marie just stood there, leaning against a wrecked vehicle, tears welling in her eyes as she saw him holding his daughter's hand until his body went slack and he was finally free.

Now there's nothing to do but let him have the rest he earned.

Laura's quoting something Marie doesn't know, but it doesn't matter. When she says, "Run along home to your mother," it tears Marie apart. A sob breaks from her as she imagines Logan in some kind of afterlife she's not even sure she believes in, once again in the arms of the momma he couldn't remember. It's heart-wrenching to think he might be with her, that he'd know her, get all those memories and all that love back again.

Maybe heaven's just a lie, but for this hour at least, Marie decides to believe.

The funeral's over. The children begin trudging off, but Laura hangs back for a moment, then tugs on Logan's grave marker, a crude cross made of sticks tied together. _Leave that alone_ , Marie wants to say, until she realizes what the girl's done; she's changed the cross to an X. That child might only have known him for a few days, but she knew him as truly as anyone else ever did.

Marie's the last to walk away. She stands there for a few long seconds, hand wrapped around the dog tags dangling around her neck. Her first impulse is to hang the chain on the X, so something with his name will be here. But she doesn't.

The first time he put them into her hands, he told her to keep them for him until he came back. So that's what she's going to do. She'll keep them forever.

 

 

 

THE END


End file.
